A few years ago I started skateboarding again to keep in shape for snowboarding in the summer. I'm writing this from bed as I'm recovering from an ACL replacement due to a fall I took skateboarding at that time.
I agree with the "do what you want to" sentiment but sports like skateboarding are a matter of when you'll get injured, not if. And those injuries have an impact on other things you might want to do. So be careful.
Falls aren't any more frequent riding XC than on a road bike. I'm about to turn 40 and I much prefer the flow of good singletrack over tarmac any day.
- Sharing roads with fast heavy vehicles at speed.
- Lycra.
- The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard).
- Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure.
Carefully plot your routes.
> Lycra.
No need for that bs, a t-shirt, jeans and good shoes are all you need.
> The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard).
You can buy great used bikes for relatively little money. I just bought a top of the line roadbike that's a bit older for $200 which I used regularly, another for $150, which I converted into a hometrainer:
https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification
Don't fret about the quality of the bike, until you reach competition level it is totally unimportant. I regularly pass people on much better bikes with all the goodies and just yesterday I in turn was passed by someone in at least their sixties on a bike that was much older than mine and I wouldn't have been able to catch him no matter how hard I tried. The bike rarely matters.
> Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure.
I've crashed pretty hard about 2 years ago. It was my own fault, riding a recumbent on a regular road. Still, I got lucky, broke my leg badly but nothing else.
If you do go for competition cycling then maybe it is worth it to you to spend the extra $ but for the most part it seems to me that people just love to have an excuse to spend their $ to look like they are professional athletes.
Their bellies usually tell a different story, but fortunately for them lycra seems to stretch really well ;)
The only time I've had chafing issues was when doing a circle around the 'IJsselmeer' in one day. That was bad. But I was also peeing green and out for the count for the next day so enough time to heal up :)
Just need to find somewhere to store a road bike along with the skis, skateboards, snowboards, and mountain bikes now…
Another thing, if you're shopping for bikes is to check for new-old-stock, sometimes you can get crazy discounts on bikes that are only one or two years old thanks to the 'fashionista's' who wouldn't be caught dead on a bike that isn't of the latest model year and in the latest colors.
I don't road bike but AFAIK the cheapest way to have a bike that weighs one pound less isn't hyper-expensive materials but diet based weight loss about a month ago. In the spirit of the old weight lifting joke, or maybe wisdom, that illegal steroid use might make you look like you have an extra year's lifting experience while causing significant medical problems, and in that context the medically safest replacement for illegal steroid use that gets you to the same place without any medical danger is simply to start lifting one year earlier, and a lot of money is made in the market convincing people that patience is not an alternative.
Not using your body into old age also carries risks, of course, but I accept there are safer ways of staying active than skateboarding. (Am also a skier and snowboarder, so doing it for much the same reasons as you. Hope you heal up ok!)
Skateboarding is dangerous, but at least on a ramp or bowl, there aren't cars that can kill you in an instant, and (unlike surfing or snowboarding) where you are riding is mostly predictable and under control.
And, yes, no illusions about becoming Bucky Lasek (45) or Tony Hawk (49); I started way too late to go pro and have other things I'm good at. It's about fun, fitness, friends, and cutting down journey times on foot for me.
And I agree, know many skateboarders my age who have had knee ops. So far I've been OK, but I know it's only a matter of time.
When I was younger, I would over-train, recover quickly, repeat (I run, weight train, cycle).
Now, I don't heal so fast. Instead, I try to maximize my strength and fitness while simultaneously minimizing injuries.
At this age, I look at it as a fun constrained optimization problem. So, the added intellectual challenge, required to be physically active while aging, I quite enjoy.
Best wishes to heal soon and be back on the board!
what are those other things? i hope i don't get injured so i can keep playing sports - not dancing or walking around paris or etc. seems circular
It also helps to see others normalising skating as a commuting form — I'd guess 1/3 of Casey Neistat's videos feature skateboards, longboards, and their electric variants. (He is 37.)
I was tempted by longboarding, but bought the skateboard because they're easier to trick, carry, and stash. I can see myself buying a longboard eventually too, though…
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_top/love-park-was-suppo...
So I wonder if starting in your 40s is better because you never knew what your body was capable of in your teens and early 20s, so that depression doesn't kick in.
Though I find there's some truth in the article, the author is generalizing a very private experience, something that I find a bit irritating. It bases on how other people see her (madame instead of mademoiselle), while it's clear that it all depends on you. I don't like the mild sense of ending that pervades the article.
— Skateboarder Jay Adams, 1961-2014
I am nearing 40 and recently took up skateboarding.
Naturally before I did so I searched for, “Am I too old to start skateboarding?”, fully expecting the result to be “yes!” and wondering whether or not I would let that stop me. I came across this profile of Neal Unger, a (now) 60+ year-old man who took up skateboarding in his late 50s:
https://www.absolute-snow.co.uk/articles/youre-never-too-old...
YouTube is full of videos of skaters in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, and it encouraged me to give it a shot.
It's been interesting to experience the reaction from friends, family, and strangers when I told them I skate, or when I skate in groups of younger people (they are almost always younger, unless they're the folks running the skate shop/park).
My conclusion is the same as Pamela Druckerman's in her piece here: grown-ups don't exist. Your body will age, you will be more conscious of your mortality, society will judge you or ignore you, and that transition can be really tough.
But you can flip the “age out of wunderkind” feeling she mentions — you can use the “don't care what you think” attitude that often accompanies getting older to question the status quo and do the things you want to do anyway. As you age you can become remarkable not just for the things you have done but for the things you decide to continue doing — or the things you decide to start doing. Suppressing your ambition and confining yourself to a subset of the activities that were once available to you because you feel older or because “old people don't X” feels like a sad way to live.